Quotes about friendship
22 passages from classic authors that speak of friendship, for example by François de La Rochefoucauld, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
We kept the passages whose text touches on the theme, starting with those where it comes up most. Each is given word for word, with its author, its work and the reference of the passage. To browse an author’s quotes, follow the name.
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“The greatest effort of friendship is not to show our faults to a friend, but to show him his own.”
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“When our friends have deceived us we owe them but indifference to the tokens of their friendship, yet for their misfortunes we always owe them pity.”
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“Gray, my good friend, is every theory, But green the golden tree of life.”
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“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.”
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“The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.”
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“Pure friendship is something which men of an inferior intellect can never taste.”
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“I have always been most desirous of honourable friendships, and have faithfully cherished them.”
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“No one would choose to live without friends though he should have all the other good things in the world.”
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“I commend you, in that you consider the affliction of your friend your own affliction. Now be of good heart.”
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“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
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“Friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all subjects human and divine, joined with mutual goodwill and affection.”
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“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
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“You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.”
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“He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”
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“And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
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“And now Spring beckons me with verdant hand, / And Nature’s wealth of eloquence doth win / Forth to the fragrant-bowered nectarine, / Where my dear friends abide, a careless band.”
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“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! / Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; / Conspiring with him how to load and bless / With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run.”
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“For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down, / To strengthen whilst one stands.”
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“Frost and sun, the day is wondrous! / Thou still art slumbering, charming friend. / 'Tis time, O Beauty, to awaken: / Ope thine eyes, now in sweetness closed, / To meet the Northern Dawn of Morning / Thyself a north-star do thou appear!”
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“Though many ages are gone since Nushirowan was in being, yet in the remembrance of his munificence is his fair renown left. Be generous, O my friend! and avail thyself of life, before they proclaim it as an event that such a person is not left.”
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“To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation.”
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“Oh! she is good, the little rain! and well she knows our need / Who cometh in the time of spring to aid the sun-drawn seed; / She wanders with a friendly wind through silent nights unseen, / The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo! the land is green.”